Lateral and Vertical Two-Dimensional Layered Topological Insulator

Oct 15, 2015 - Ngoc Han Tu , Yoichi Tanabe , Yosuke Satake , Khuong Kim Huynh , Katsumi Tanigaki. Nature Communications 2016 7, 13763 ...
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Lateral and Vertical Two-Dimensional Layered Topological Insulator Heterostructures Yanbin Li, Jinsong Zhang, Guangyuan Zheng, Yongming Sun, Seung Sae Hong, Feng Xiong, Shuang Wang, Hye Ryoung Lee, and Yi Cui ACS Nano, Just Accepted Manuscript • DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.5b04068 • Publication Date (Web): 15 Oct 2015 Downloaded from http://pubs.acs.org on October 18, 2015

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Lateral and Vertical Two-Dimensional Layered Topological Insulator Heterostructures Yanbin Li1, Jinsong Zhang1, Guangyuan Zheng1, Yongming Sun1, Seung Sae Hong2, Feng Xiong1, Shuang Wang3, Hye Ryoung Lee3, Yi Cui1,4,* 1

Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Stanford University, California 94305, United States 2

Department of Applied Physics, Stanford University, California 94305, United States

3Department

4

of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University, California 94305, United States

Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, 2575 Sand Hill Road, Menlo Park, California 94025, United States * To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: [email protected] (Y. C.)

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ABSTRACT. Heterostructured configuration between two-dimensional (2D) semiconductor materials has enabled the engineering of bandgap and design of novel devices. So far, the synthesis of single component topological insulator (TI) 2D materials such as Bi2Se3, Bi2Te3 and Sb2Te3 has been achieved through vapor phase growth and molecular beam epitaxy, however, the spatial controlled fabrication of 2D lateral heterostructures in these systems has not been demonstrated yet. Here, we report an in situ two-step synthesis process to form TI lateral heterostructures. Scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) and energy-dispersive Xray (EDX) mapping results show the successful spatial control of chemical composition in these as-prepared heterostructures. The edge-induced growth mechanism is revealed by the ex situ atomic force microscope (AFM) measurements. Electrical transport studies demonstrate the existence of p-n junctions in Bi2Te3/Sb2Te3 heterostructures.

KEYWORDS: Lateral heterostructures; Layered materials; Topological insulator; In situ synthesis method; Electrical transport measurements

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Heterostructures of two-dimensional (2D) layered materials have emerged as a family of materials that exhibit many interesting physical properties.1-8 As 2D materials, group V-VI topological insulators (TI) Bi2Se3, Bi2Te3 and Sb2Te3 show new states of quantum matter. TIs have an insulating gap in the bulk and gapless helical surface states which means the electron spin is locked perpendicular to momentum.9-13 This helical property results in the suppression of electron backscattering from crystal defects and nonmagnetic impurities as long as the timereversal symmetry is preserved.14-16 As shown in Figure 1a, lateral heterostructures are constructed by adjoined heterogeneous layered materials along intraplane direction, different from vertical heterostructures, in which two layered materials are stacked along interplane direction.7 While vertical TI heterostructures has been studied17, 18 and purposed as a candidate to observe topological exciton condensation19, theoretical works show that TI lateral p-n heterostructures have a gapless chiral edge state along the interface in the presence of external magnetic field,20 and can further serve as a spin filter.21 Exploring the potential of TI lateral heterostructures will open up the new way to novel electronics and spintronics. Although twodimensional lateral heterostructures have been first reported between grapheme-boron nitride2-4 and recently achieved in transition-metal dichalcogenides system,5-7 the growth of lateral heterostructures between group V-VI TI remains challenging due to easy formation of alloy phase.22 Here, we developed an in situ two-step synthesis process to grow the TI lateral heterostructures by vapor-solid growth mechanism. Ex situ atomic force microscope (AFM) measurements of the two-step growth of Bi2Se3 and Bi2Te3 reveals the edge-induced growth mechanism of TI lateral heterostructures. Moreover, conductive AFM measurements show p-n diode rectification in the Bi2Te3/Sb2Te3 heterostructures, which open up opportunities for TIs in a range of novel electronics and spintronics.

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The layered materials Bi2Se3, Bi2Te3 and Sb2Te3 all possess the same crystal structure with the  space group  (3 ). As shown in Figure 1b, they consist of planar quintuple layers, for

example Se-Bi-Se-Bi-Se in Bi2Se3, with the quintuple layer thickness about 1 nm. The quintuple layers consist of strong intraplanar covalent bonding and are stacked together by weak van der Waals interaction. With this anisotropic bonding, we previously demonstrated the growth of fewlayer TI nanoplates on an oxidized silicon surface via a vapor-solid (VS) synthesis process.23 Furthermore, van der Waals epitaxial VS growth were previously reported on special substrates such as mechanically exfoliated graphene,24 boron nitride25 and cleaved fluorophlogopite mica ([KMg  (AlSi O )F ]),26 which have relatively small lattice mismatch with these TI materials. With this van der Waals epitaxy mechanism, vertical heterostructures were formed by growing the second material on top of an existing nanoplate.24 Here, based on these van der Waals epitaxy substrates, we developed an in situ growth setup to achieve the synthesis of lateral heterostuctures, in which the second material is in-plane adjoined to the layer edge dangling bond of the first material while epitaxial on substrate.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION An in situ two-step strategy was developed for the preparing of lateral heterostructures. The whole synthesis process was carried out in a quartz tube under Argon flow. Two source powders were sealed in the tube before the heat treatment process. In order to avoid breaking the vacuum, we developed a new method by using specially designed boats to exchange the positions of two sources between two growth steps. The growth order of the materials is determined by their melting point. The high melting point material is firstly grown, which reduces the amount of its residual evaporation during the growth of second materials. As an example, we show the growth of Bi2Te3/Bi2Se3 heterostructures (Figure 1c). During the first growth, Bi2Se3 source powder was 4 ACS Paragon Plus Environment

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placed in a crucible boat in the hot center of the tube furnace, while the Bi2Te3 boat was left in the upstream cold zone. A freshly cleaved fluorophlogopite mica was used as a substrate and placed in the downstream cold zone. Bi2Se3 vapor is transported to the mica substrate by Argon flow at the preset temperature to form Bi2Se3 nanoplates. The Bi2Te3 source powder is carried by a specially designed boat, which is higher in its vertical position than the Bi2Se3 boat and has an empty space under it allowing the passing of the Bi2Se3 boat between two growths. After the first growth and natural cooling down to lower than the Curie temperature of magnet, we switched the positions of Bi2Se3 and Bi2Te3 sources using the quartz sealed magnet and performed the second growth to form Bi2Te3/Bi2Se3 lateral heterostructures. In order to investigate the structure and composition of the as-synthesized Bi2Te3/Bi2Se3 heterostructures, scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) and energy-dispersive Xray (EDX) mapping were performed. A low-magnification STEM image reveals that the product is composed of a plate-like nanoarchitecture (Figure 2a). Meanwhile, dark/light contrast is clearly observed at the edge of a nanoplate, suggesting the composition and/or structure differences. Furthermore, the EDX mapping characterizations were carried out, which provide composition distribution information over the structure. Clear composition contrast is shown in a selected edge area of the nanoplate. The Se signal is mainly observed in the inner region while the Te signal only exist in the outer region of the nanoplate, which is consistent with the growth order. Note that the weak Se signal in the outer region arises from the inter-diffusion of Se atoms from Bi2Se3 during the second growth. These results are compelling evidences for the successful synthesis of the lateral Bi2Te3/Bi2Se3 heterostructures with some Se outer diffusion. To show the versatility of our special designed method to synthesize lateral heterostructures, the

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Bi2Te3/Sb2Te3 heterostructure was also successfully achieved via the same procedure but using Sb2Te3 as the source material for the first growth (Figure 2b). To highlight the advance of our special designed in situ synthesis method, we also characterized the Bi2Te3/Bi2Se3 heterostructures formed via an ex situ growth method (Supporting Information, Figure S1). The difference between these two methods is that the assynthesized Bi2Se3 nanoplate in the ex situ growth method has to be exposed to the atmosphere due to the source change before the second step growth of Bi2Te3. As shown in Figure 2c, Bi2Te3/Bi2Se3 nanoplates are also achieved via ex situ synthesis process. Although the similar dark/light contrast is observed around the edge of the formed nanoplate under STEM, EDX mapping results show quite different composition distribution information. The most outstanding difference is that, in the inner region of this sample we can easily identify the Te signal, which is not observed for the samples prepared via the special designed in situ synthesis method. This phenomenon suggests the growth of a Bi2Te3 layer on top of the Bi2Se3 nanoplate for this controlled sample, while it is dramatically suppressed when the intermediate Bi2Se3 is not exposed to the atmosphere. A possible reason is that during the exposition of Bi2Se3 to the air, oxygen and water molecules adsorb on its surface, which creates the active sites and induces the nucleation and growth of Bi2Te3 on the basal planes of Bi2Se3 nanoplates. To qualify the composite distribution difference between the two Bi2Te3/Bi2Se3 heterostructures obtained from the in situ and ex situ synthesis methods respectively, EDX line scan across the interfaces was further investigated (Figure 2d). For the central areas and outer areas, Se signal ratios are almost the same for the two samples, indicating that diffusion of Se is not affected by the exposure to ambience atmosphere. However, the ratio of Te signal at the inner region is dramatically suppressed without exposure to the atmosphere.

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Understanding the growth mechanism of TI lateral heterostructures is important in determining their growth conditions of different steps and designing new device structures. AFM is an ideal technique for characterizing 2D nanomaterials such as Bi2Se3, Bi2Te3 and Sb2Te3 nanoplates,23, 24, 26

due to its high resolution and minimal sample damage during characterization. In our

experiment, ex situ AFM measurements were carried out to investigate the evolution of morphology and structure of these 2D heterostructures over their ex situ growth with air exposure between the two step growth (Figure 3a). A Bi2Se3 nanoplate (obtained after the first growth for 10 minutes) is used as the base substrate, Bi2Te3/Bi2Se3 heterostructures at different Bi2Te3 growth stages (2–8 minutes) were subject to AFM characterizations. Their morphology and structure information were collected and growth mechanism were analyzed. As shown in Figure 3b, after the first 2 minutes for Bi2Te3 growth, the lateral size of nanoplatechanges from 7.5 µm to 8.6 µm. And the AFM tip broadening effect only adds about 20 nm to the lateral size, which does not affect the lateral measurement accuracy in this much larger lateral size range. In contrast, the vertical thickness of nanoplate only increases from 18 nm to 24 nm. Thus, with a high anisotropic ratio of ~100, the original nanoplate shows clear preferential growth in the horizontal plane as compared to the z-direction. The lateral growth of Bi2Te3 is due to the anisotropic bonding nature of these layered materials. Since Bi2Se3 and Bi2Te3 have similar lattice constants, incoming atoms tend to covalently bind to the dangling bonds around the edge of Bi2Se3 to form initial nuclei. After the nucleation, atomic growth continues at the edge sites dangling bonds and leads to a higher growth rate in lateral direction. Meanwhile, a thin layer of Bi2Te3 also forms on top of the Bi2Se3 nanoplates due to the oxygen and water residue from the exposure to ambience during AFM characterization. As discussed above, without such exposure (in situ two step growth), a much distinct lateral heterostructurecan be obtained (Figure 2a).

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Once the top surface is terminated with chemically saturated Te atoms, vertical growth is slowed down and any adsorbed atoms tend to diffuse around to the edge sites. Verified by the two peaks at the edge in AFM line scan for the samples with Bi2Te3 growth for 4 minutes, the edge of the nanoplate starts to grow thicker (Figure 3c) and further growth leads to the formation of a crater structure on top of the original nanoplate (Figure 3d). Since the protrusion at the edge has dangling bonds on both sides, the lateral growth also starts to happen inside the crater until it is filled (Figure 3e). This edge-induced growth mechanism is similar to the growth mechanism of few-layer Bi2Te3 and Bi2Se3 nanoplates resulting from their anisotropic bonding nature.23 Control experiments were carried out to show that during the noncontact AFM measurements the probe will not contaminate the surface of nanoplates (Supporting Information, Figure S2). Our facile synthesis of various heterostructures with high quality pave the way for their advanced study in various fields. The as-obtained Bi2Te3/Bi2Se3 heterostructure consists of two n-type TIs while the Bi2Te3/Sb2Te3 product is a topological p-n lateral heterostructure. It should be pointed out that some Sb atoms diffuse into the Bi2Te3 area during the growth process of Sb2Te3 (Figure 2b) and form (BixSb1-x)2Te3 alloy in the outer region of heterostructure. With different stoichiometry x, (BixSb1-x)2Te3 alloy can be n-type or p-type.22,

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experiment, this amount of Sb diffusion within the structure does not affect the p-n diode property of our sample. To confirm the existence of p-n heterojunction, we carried out conductive AFM (C-AFM) measurements. To prepare the sample, we extend the in situ growth time of second step to form a thick Bi2Te3 layer covering the whole Sb2Te3 nanoplate. Crosssection scanning electron microscope (SEM) is carried out to show the structure of the sample (Supporting Information, Figure S3). Before the C-AFM characterization, we used a clean method to transfer sample from mica to an Au/Cr/silicon (10nm/100nm/300µm) substrate. As

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shown in Figure 4a, a mica with sample on top is firstly flipped over and put on the Au/Cr/silicon substrate. Then it is covered by 5 mm dry PDMS stamp and pressed slightly. Meanwhile, the silicon substrate is baked under 70 ºC for 10 minutes to form van der Waals bond between nanoplate samples and Au layer. Finally, the PDMS stamp is lifted off carefully with flipped heterostructured nanoplate sample left on the silicon substrate. By applying a small bias to the silicon substrate (Figure 4b), the topography and I-V characteristics of samples are simultaneously acquired by an Au/Cr coated conductive AFM tip in contact C-AFM model. First, the I-V characteristics of Bi2Te3 nanoplate and Sb2Te3 nanoplate are obtained (Figure 4c,d). A linear I-V relationship is observed for both Bi2Te3 and Sb2Te3 nanoplate, indicating the metal contact barrier does not significantly affect the device behavior. The electrical transport study of the heterostructure shows clear current rectification behavior in the I-V curve (Figure 4e), with current only able to pass through the device when the bottom n-type Bi2Te3 is negatively biased. The current rectification clearly demonstrates the existence of p-n junction.

CONCLUSIONS In summary, we have successfully demonstrated an in situ two-step synthesis process to grow TI lateral heterostructures on mica substrates. STEM images and EDX mappings show clear and sharp interfaces across the as-synthesized heterostructures, indicating high-quality 2D lateral heterostructures. AFM studies reveal the edge-activated growth mechanism for these TI lateral heterostructures. To prevent sample contamination, we develop a facile method to transfer samples from mica substrate to Au coated silicon substrate. The existence of p-n junctions in the Bi2Te3/Sb2Te3 heterostructures is comfirmed by C-AFM measurements. The successful synthesis of high-quality TI lateral heterostructure paves the way to create unprecedented TI electronics and spintronics. 9 ACS Paragon Plus Environment

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METHODS In situ Two-Step Growth of Bi2Te3/Bi2Se3 Lateral Heterostructures. The growth was carried out inside a one-inch diameter quartz tube heated by horizontal tube furnace (Lindberg/Blue M). Two quartz boats with different source powders, one quartz sealed magnet and freshly cleaved fluorophlogopite mica substrates were put in the tube before the growth. The tube was then pumped to approximately 5 mTorr and flushed with ultrapure Argon gas several times to remove oxygen residue. In the first growth step, the boat containing high melting point material Bi2Se3 (Alfa Aesar, purity 99.999%) was placed in the hot center of the tube furnace, while the boat with low melting point material Bi2Te3 (Alfa Aesar, purity 99.999%) was left in the upstream cold zone. The mica substrates were placed in the downstream cold zone about 12 cm away from the center. During the growth, ultrapure Argon (flow rate ~30 sccm) was used as a carrier gas to transport the source materials vapor to the mica substrates. The growth pressure was set at ~900 mTorr with a growth temperature at ~490 ºC and growth time of ~5 minutes. After the first growth, we used the quartz sealed magnet to switch the positions of Bi2Se3 and Bi2Te3 sources without breaking the vacuum. Then the furnace was heated up to ~470 ºC to perform the second growth to form Bi2Te3/Bi2Se3 lateral heterostructures. The Bi2Te3/Sb2Te3 lateral heterostructures can be achieved through the same procedure by changing the source powder of first growth step into Sb2Te3 (Alfa Aesar, purity 99.999%). For the ex situ two-step growth method, the as-synthesized Bi2Se3 nanoplate was exposed to the air atmosphere due to the source change before the second step growth of Bi2Te3.

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Characterizations. AFM (Park Systems XE-70), SEM (FEI XL30 Sirion), STEM and EDX mapping (FEI Tecnai G2 F20 X-TWIN) was carried out to characterize the samples. Carbon film supported copper grid was used for STEM characterization. Electrical Transport Measurements of Bi2Te3/Sb2Te3 Heterostructures. The electrical transport studies were carried out by using conductive atomic force microscope (C-AFM, Park Systems XE-100) with a conductive cantilever (Park Systems NSC18/Cr-Au). The C-AFM measurement was carried out under a sample biased configuration with an external 100 kΩ resistance. Bi2Te3/Sb2Te3 heterostructure nanoplates were transferred to an Au/Cr/silicon (10nm/100nm/300µm) substrate before experiments.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Y. Cui acknowledges the support from DARPA MESO project (no. N66001-11-1-4105). G. Zheng acknowledges financial support from Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), Singapore.

Supporting Information Available: Experimental details and additional figures. This material is available free of charge via the Internet at http://pubs.acs.org.

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FIGURE CAPTIONS Figure 1. (a) A schematic of lateral and vertical Bi2Te3/Bi2Se3 heterostructure. (b) Layered crystal structure of Bi2Se3, Bi2Te3 and Sb2Te3, with each quintuple layer (QL) formed by five Bi (or Sb) and Se (or Te) atomic sheets. (c) A schematic drawing of in situ synthesis process. In the first growth Bi2Se3 (or Sb2Te3) boat is put in the center hot zone as the source powder to grow Bi2Se3 (or Sb2Te3) nanoplates through vapor-solid growth process. After switching the Bi2Te3 boat into the center hot zone, in the second growth, lateral epitaxial growth of Bi2Te3 can occur at the edge of the Bi2Se3 (or Sb2Te3) nanoplates. Figure 2. STEM and EDX mapping results of (a) In situ two-step synthesized Bi2Te3/Bi2Se3 heterostructure; (b) In situ two-step synthesized Bi2Te3/Sb2Te3 heterostructure and (c) Ex situ two-step synthesized Bi2Te3/Bi2Se3 heterostructure. (Scale bar 2 µm) (d) EDX line scan profiles across the interfaces of in situ and ex situ synthesized Bi2Te3/Bi2Se3 heterostructure. The Se intensity ratio of inner and outer region are almost same for in situ and ex situ synthesized heterostructure due to the diffusion of Se atoms. The Te intensity ratio of inner and outer region of in situ synthesized heterostructure decreases significantly comparing with the ex situ synthesized heterostructure, indicating the formation of lateral heterostructure through in situ synthesis process. Figure 3. (a) A schematic of the growth mechanism for the air exposed Bi2Te3/Bi2Se3 heterostructured nanoplate sample. Due to oxygen and water residue from the exposure to ambience during AFM characterization, the second material (Bi2Te3) grown both laterally and on top of existing Bi2Se3 nanoplates. As growth time increases, a crater structure will form on top of the original nanoplate, and the lateral growth starts to happen inside the crater. (b–e) Ex situ AFM measurement of the same nanoplates before and after the second step growth. After (b) 2, (c) 4, (d) 6 and (e) 8 minutes of second step growth, the nanoplates extend both in height and width. Height profiles show that a crater structure started to form after the second growth for 6 minutes. (Scale bar 2 µm) 12 ACS Paragon Plus Environment

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Figure 4. (a) A schematic of the clean transfer process to transfer heterostructure from mica to Au/Cr/Silicon (10nm/100nm/300µm) substrate and flip it over. (b) A schematic of C-AFM measurement process. The sample is biased through silicon substrate while the AFM probe is grounded. (c,d) I-V characteristics of Bi2Te3 and Sb2Te3 nanoplates. (e) I-V characteristics of Bi2Te3/Sb2Te3 heterostructure. The p-n diode rectification behavior demonstrates the existence of p-n heterojunction.

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REFERENCES AND NOTE

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